


balance

by AdiAbieu



Series: anthology [4]
Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-23
Updated: 2019-01-06
Packaged: 2019-09-25 17:40:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,686
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17125826
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AdiAbieu/pseuds/AdiAbieu
Summary: All Maggie wants is a woman who will stick around long enough to care, to see the softer sides of her, the ones that are uglier and dark.A woman who could look her in the face after she told them the big mistakes in her life and say that she didn’t have to be ashamed anymore.She thinks Alex Danvers might be that woman.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Alex helping Maggie bring down some barriers within herself.
> 
> Set after 2x19 but before 2x21.

People believe that being a detective involves kicking down doors, shoving her badge in suspects’ faces and slamming them onto an interrogation table until they answer the questions she wants them too. Maggie blames this common misconception on the constant cycle of police procedurals on TV. 

In reality, her job involves a lot more observation and logical thinking than the action-packed car chases and fight sequences would have the public believe. Each case has a lot more paperwork, lying witnesses, arduous stake-outs and routine that ultimately leads nowhere. 

Maggie’s job primarily involves a rotation of watching her environment, waiting on developments, imagining the possibilities, and finally, weighing up the evidence. 

And she does watch. 

She chooses a spot right in the centre of the DEO control room. Winn and the other agents are engrossed in their computer monitors. Scientists and technicians filter around her with their noses stuck in their tablets. Right there in the middle, she blends in because of the lack of awareness of their environment. 

She enjoys watching the inner workings of the organisation that for so much of her time in National City had been shrouded in myth and rumour. It gives her experiences that are sometimes perilous, and sometimes bizarre. 

Like the sight of a seven foot Burgonian bursting out of one of the corridors, her girlfriend hot on their heels. Alex skids to a stop, aiming a glowing rifle at the back of the fleeing alien. The air crackles with static as she pulls the trigger, a field of blue shooting out the engulf the escapee. It roars, spasms, and falls to the ground. 

Alex slings the rifle over her shoulder, marches towards the alien, and clicks reinforced cuffs around two bulky wrists. Then she frogwalks him back towards the cells with a scowl, not noticing Maggie, nor the dozens of agents mulling around. 

Maggie often watches Alex; she watches her cuffing suspects and tossing them into cells, watches her intimidate deadly threats over interrogation tables. She watches her train recruits, watches her shadow-box before workouts, watches her stern concentration as she commands a strike team. 

But Maggie also gets to watch the gentler moments of Alex. The twitches of her brow as she sleeps. The anxious clenching in and out of her fists before she calls her mother. The drop of her shoulders in disappointment when yet another lead on Cadmus falls flat. That tiny, unsure smile each time Maggie tells her she loves her. 

Maggie also waits. She is waiting on a lab report she knows is being delayed on purpose because of a foul-mouthed fellow detective who likes to pick on the techs. She is waiting for her girlfriend to finish up with the rogue alien, so they can go get the chinese she has been craving since lunch. But she has also been waiting since the beginning of their relationship for the one particular taboo that everyone wants to indulge in once they find out she’s a cop. 

Handcuffs. Every single woman she has been with eventually brings them up, and Maggie hates it. No matter how much previous girlfriends have lauded her on her bravery and service to the city, they all show their hand in the end. They press their cards to the table, grinning maniacally, and ask her to produce the cuffs. 

Maggie has bled for her job, has sweated and climbed and taken elbows to the face both physically and metaphorically. She has worked so many hours on the trot that she couldn’t read the reports at the end of it. She has told countless mothers that their sons and daughters wouldn’t be coming home. She has dived into dumpsters for murder weapons, herded frightened kids out of a locked down school, held her stomach at the perimeter of a multi-victim car crash. She’s tramped through urine, blood, vomit and a whole host of other substances just to earn the reputation and respect that she has. 

But all women want her for is the handcuffs. The kink, the fun, the taboo. It isn’t as if Maggie is afraid of a little bondage, but the problem is that it always goes one way. Her whole romantic life, she has searched for equality, for a woman who would see the faux bravado of her status as a cop and want to challenge her on it, who saw it as more than a roleplay opportunity.

Someone who cared enough to ask: underneath the tough exterior, who was she really? 

All Maggie wants is a woman who will stick around long enough to care, to see the softer sides of her, the ones that are uglier and dark. A woman who could look her in the face after she told them the big mistakes in her life and say that she didn’t have to be ashamed anymore. 

She thinks Alex Danvers might be that woman. 

They’ve been toe to toe since the very first time they met. Alex has seen what is beneath her mask and hasn’t run away in fear. She’s learned about the demons that battle around in Maggie’s head, the ones that tell her she doesn’t deserve happiness, that she works too hard, that she is too jaded to really love someone. But Alex has held her hand and refused to go anywhere.   

Maggie watches, she waits and if she’s honest, she has begun to imagine. 

In the beginning, she didn’t allow herself that luxury. Alex was like a foal; easily spooked and just finding her feet. Their relationship could have buckled at any time. But she’s been building confidence enough to trot on her own. She initiates things, she takes the lead, and she is even domineering at times. Maggie laps it up, and after being unhappy in her search for so long, she thinks Alex could be her equal. And so she allows herself to fantasise about all of the things she has never felt comfortable enough to let another woman do with her, or to her.  

Maggie watches, she waits, she imagines that maybe she could teach Alex to gallop. 

Alex is at the counter of the chinese restaurant. Maggie spies her through the window, bouncing on her toes, nodding her head to a song that she presumes is playing on the speakers. She stays in the cruiser, thinking about how Alex had cuffed that alien in the DEO. Heat pools in her stomach and with a deep breath she splays lower in the driver seat. 

Oh yes, Maggie has begun to fantasise about all of those desires that she has kept hidden from all of those past women. She picks at a torn shred of leather on the steering wheel, thinking about being held on Alex’s lap, the press of her back to Alex’s front. They’re on the couch, and Alex has Maggie’s wrists bound in a knot at her tailbone. Alex grips the silk tie and grinds her hips up, the toy buried deep inside building the pressure. But she is relaxed, shifting her hips at her leisure, tugging Maggie’s wrists in warning any time she-

The car door opens and Alex gets inside. She cradles the bag of food on her lap, wrapping her arm around it securely. 

Maggie tilts her head in question, and Alex grins, patting the brown bag. “Precious cargo.” 

They rejoin the night traffic. After a minute or so, Alex switches the volume on the radio down and looks over. “You okay?” 

“Yeah,” Maggie replies, glancing over, “Why?” 

“You’re…” The bag crinkles as she shifts and stares out of the window at the passing city lights. “You’re just quiet is all.” 

The truth is that Maggie knows that her fantasy is a far off distant dream. The images in her mind would put both of them out of their depth. 

But, as Alex takes out the white and red cartons Maggie realises that everything they’ve tried so far should have been out of their depths. Alex has been growing more assured with using toys, especially giving. And while Maggie had never felt comfortable enough with other lovers to open herself up to certain vulnerabilities, hadn’t Alex proven that she could trust her with that, at least? Even with all of her inexperience, Maggie has let her give and take things that none of her previous girlfriends had. 

So Maggie pushes past the dread and expectation and honestly asks herself; is she finally comfortable enough to reveal that  _ she _ is the one who wants to be in handcuffs?

Maggie watches, and she waits, and she imagines and finally, she weighs up the evidence. 

Alex has a deep-seated hatred for all things  _ 50 Shades,  _ and asserts her opinion each time the franchise comes up either on TV or in conversation. Yet Maggie knows she has taken to some of the softer elements of giving and taking control, and bondage didn’t have to be heavy. Alex has seen the silk ties in Maggie’s drawer, she must have a basic idea of what they are for, must have imagined how they could be used to restrain someone. 

The thought of Alex imagining tying her up sends a shiver down her spine, but she reigns it in for now, concentrating on limiting the options to her handcuffs.  

She watches now, Alex picking through her takeout box. 

“Every time,” she complains, picking with her chopsticks. She makes a face and extracts a grey vegetable. “Every time I ask them for no mushrooms and still they insist on giving me mushrooms.”

Maggie offers out her box and with a huff Alex drops the mushroom in. “Are you sure you mention it?”

“Yes! I say, hey can you make sure that has no mushrooms? And the girl says no mushrooms, no problem. But here we are with mushrooms.”

Maggie smirks into her rice, poking at a piece of chicken and digging it into the sticky rice. “You ever think about how you’re beginning to sound more and more like your sister?”

Alex scoffs. “My sister doesn’t complain about food. She inhales it too fast to talk about it.” 

They eat quietly then, until Alex offers out the complimentary bag of prawn crackers. Maggie takes one, and then carefully piles in some rice. “I saw you take down that Fort Rozz escapee today.”

“You mean you saw my fancy gun catch him?” Alex packs some stray short noodles into a cracker with a sigh. “There’s so many still out there.”

“You handled him though.”

Alex winks. “That’s what they pay me for.”

Again, a period of content quiet, until Maggie finally gets up the nerve to find out if her conclusions are correct. 

“I have a question.”

“Shoot.” Alex twirls her chopsticks, wrapping a long noodle around them and lifting them to her mouth before they drop. 

“Why have you never brought up using handcuffs?” At Alex’s frown, Maggie adds context; “I mean, in the bedroom.”

Alex slurps her noodles, half-choking in surprise. “Whap-?” she manages, dabbing at her chin with a napkin.

“Handcuffs.” Maggie jiggles her carton, digging at the rice. “You’re dating a cop. You’ve gotta have thought about it.”

“Um.” Alex puts down her carton, averting her gaze. “Not really.”

“What?” Maggie asks. “Even after you found all that stuff in the drawer?”

“Okay, I’ve thought about it maybe but…” She lowers her chin, her hair falling down to hide her blush. “I use handcuffs every day, so do you. It isn’t like that for me. They’re just a work tool.” 

Maggie nods, knowing all too well how the utilitarian aspect has ruined the appeal of using handcuffs with all of her previous partners. 

“And besides, I respect your job, and I want you to know I think you do great work,” Alex says, waving a hand. Sensing she might be rambling, she traps it down in her lap, but Maggie smiles in understanding, nodding again for her to go on. “I see you as a protector, and defender, an all-round badass with a heart big enough to try and help this city even after it’s been tramped on time after time.”

Alex takes a deep breath, shrugging. “Sure, I’ve thought about it. I’m dating a cop,” she clarifies with a weak laugh. Maggie is almost knocked out by the genuinity in her eyes as she meets Maggie’s across the table. “But I see you as your badge, not your handcuffs. I see  _ you _ , Maggie.”  

It takes all of Maggie’s strength not to lunge across the table and offer herself up right then. She falls back against the seat, blinking. Her chopsticks balance precariously in the box. 

“Wow,” she breathes.

Alex swipes at her mouth with a napkin. “Sorry, didn’t mean to give you a rousing speech.” 

“I wasn’t expecting that.” Maggie clears her throat, picking up her chopsticks again. “Thank you.” 

“You’re welcome.” Alex smiles, and her eyes are filled with the love that squeezes Maggie’s heart. 

Getting up to pour them wine, she hears it again.  _ I see you, Maggie. _

The wine splashes into the glasses, sinfully red in the dimmed kitchen lights. Maggie thinks about the women who saw her uniform as a halloween costume, but couldn’t handle the trauma of when she was working traffic or the perimeter of those early murder scenes. The women who wanted to roleplay with her, but couldn’t handle the late hours she worked. The women who wanted a rough touch, but couldn’t handle a real hardened heart.   

_ I see you, Maggie.  _

She thinks about the stream of apologies Alex had given the first time she cancelled a date because of a Supergirl-related emergency. She thinks about the nights that Alex doesn’t sleep, and she wakes to her girlfriend staring up at the ceiling thinking about the lives that weren’t saved that day. She thinks about how Alex has seen her with several shots in her system and heard her bitter, burnt-out rants about the NCPD, and still treated her so tenderly. 

_ I see you, Maggie. _

Isn’t that what she’s always wanted?

She looks at Alex’s profile as they sit on the couch. She watches her laugh at some stupid commercial on TV because of a running joke she has with Kara. The glare washes Alex’s eyes in white and Maggie takes a chance that she has never taken in a relationship before.

“What if I wanted you to?”

“I’m sorry, what?” Alex waits until the commercial ends to give Maggie her full attention. “Were you saying something?”

“What if I wanted to use handcuffs?”

“Oh. You wanna, uh…” She mocks crossing her wrists above her head and wiggles her fingers. 

Maggie snorts and humours her. “Yes, Alex.  _ Exactly _ like that.”

Alex drops her hands to her lap. “I dunno. I’ve never...done that with someone.” She circles her wrist, as if imagining a binding around it. “But I trust you, and I love you. So whatever you wanna do to me...I’m game for.” 

Maggie finds it endearing how her cheeks redden, but her statement is bold and sincere. 

“Actually, what if  _ I _ was the one in the cuffs?”

“Oh.” Alex opens and closes her mouth a few times, and then holds up her hands. “Wait, I need more wine for this.”

She retrieves the bottle from the kitchen, tops both of their glasses up, and then retakes her seat. She curls some hair behind her ear. “Are you thinking about a specific situation?”

“I guess…” Maggie turns to face her more. “I’d like to have my hands in front of me.”

“In front of you?”

“Above my head is fine. Just not behind my back.”

“Okay,” Alex says slowly, “Well, if you ever want to, just let me know.” 

Maggie catches Alex’s gaze flowing over her and settling around her hips, before going back to the TV, and is suddenly aware of that fact that while she has taken her gun off, she is still wearing her badge and the pouch that holds her cuffs. 

“Maybe I want you to surprise me.”

Alex’s throat bobs as she turns back. “Oh.”

“Not right now.” She reaches over to dance her fingertips down Alex’s bicep, dropping her voice into that flirtatious tone that always coaxes Alex to kiss her. “But sometime...” 

Sure enough, Alex licks her lips, and then leans in. As most of their kisses do, it escalates rapidly, and Maggie swings a leg over Alex’s lap. Losing themselves in the tension from the conversation, she feels Alex’s hand hesitating over the cuffs in the leather pouch before tracing up her spine. When they pull back, it’s with twin gasps and swollen lips. 

Alex lifts some hair away from her cheekbones, affectionately rubbing her thumbs in its place. “So, you want me to have you at my mercy, huh?”

“That is  _ not _ what I said.”

They share a conspiratory smile, because it might not have been exactly what Maggie said, but it’s  _ exactly _ what she meant.

~

They don’t talk about it again. 

Maggie pulls a week of round the clock shifts tracking down shipments of a new drug into the city.  _ Superflex _ gives users the feeling that they’re much stronger than they actually are, blocking pain receptors as they pop joints and pull muscles testing their faux strength. The compound contains dust from Dengin, which in some doses can be too toxic and potent for humans. After fourteen fatal overdoses, Maggie leads a raid on a facility that collapses the underground trading of Superflex, and she’s awarded a weekend off.

On Saturday, Alex treats her to lunch, and they walk along the harbour boardwalks, soaking up the sunshine. Then, with a sly smile the whole way, Alex leads her back to her apartment where they tumble into the sheets and reconnect after almost a full week apart. 

She falls into a dose in the late afternoon. The last thing she remembers is Alex getting up to open a window and adjust the AC, the early summer’s heat bearing down on National City. 

When she rouses again, it’s because fingertips are tracing her cheekbone around to her ear, slowing at the curve, and then moving down her jaw. 

“Maggie,” she hears.

The bed dips on either side of her hips, and she feels the weight of Alex on top of her. Without opening her eyes, she grins lazily. Alex’s lips press against her cheek, under her ear. 

“Wake up,” Alex whispers.

“Hey,” she replies, her mind is still cloudy with sleep. She opens her eyes, seeing that the bedroom is dimmer, long shadows cast up the walls. In the evening glow, Alex’s irises are like warm whiskey, playful as they gaze down at her. 

“Hey there,” Alex says, her voice catching. 

Maggie frowns, concern stirring at the nerves etched into her expression, at the tightness of Alex’s voice. She moves to loop her arms around Alex’s neck.  

And finds that she can’t. 

She hears a click, and then all at once she’s wide awake. She cranes her neck up and sees that her wrists are secured around a rung on her headboard by her silver handcuffs. How she didn’t feel the strain as she woke up, she’s not sure, but realisation crashes down upon her now. 

“Is this okay?” Alex asks. 

Maggie is speechless. She stares at the cuffs, moving her wrists this way and that, listening to the scrape of metal against metal. Alex reads this as hesitation, moving her hands to Maggie’s bent elbows. “Do you want me to-?”

“No,” Maggie breathes, “No, please. Keep going. Whatever you wanted to...”

Alex’s eyebrows raise at the unfinished implications, and gently trails her hands back down over Maggie’s biceps. “Yeah?”

Maggie licks her lips, feeling the heat tremble low in her stomach. “Yeah.”

“Okay.” Alex sits up, alert. “I put some towels down.”

She examines the beach towels spread out under her, trying to suppress her anticipation at what they could be for. “How did you manage that?”

“You roll around in your sleep.” 

Tipsy, Alex had once deemed her tiny and roly like a mini swiss roll because of how much she moved in her sleep. It dawns on her that the entire day could have been an elaborate plan to create this exact scenario.

“So that’s why you exhausted me this afternoon.”

Alex is coy as she leans over to grab at the dresser. “You said you wanted to be surprised.” 

She produces a glass that is generously filled with dark wine. She swishes her wrist ever so slightly, the liquid teasing the edge of the glass. Maggie stares up at her, daring her. 

Finally, Alex tilts her wrist and the liquid tips over the rim. It splashes onto Maggie’s chest, sliding down her breastbone. Her muscles jump at the impact, and Alex repeats the action before setting the glass back on the dresser. This time, the wine catches Maggie on an inhale, and slides down her collarbone. A trickle races towards the curve of her neck, and Alex leans down to chase it with her tongue.

Maggie bites her lip, but she can’t help the mewl that escapes as Alex licks her way up her throat. Lithe as a panther, Alex slides down over her, running the flat of her tongue up between the bridge of her ribs to her breastbone. Maggie swears shakily under her breath, her skin heating up at the sheer sin in Alex’s eyes. 

“Surprised?” Alex mumbles, kissing a smatter of freckles before going back for the wine. She repeats her sweet torture again, this time concentrating on Maggie’s breasts. 

Alex has been a breast girl from the beginning. At first, she had been fascinated at the swell of another woman’s chest. As they grew more intimate, Alex would take her time to enjoy the delighted noises she could draw from Maggie simply by focusing on using her mouth there. Being a sensitive area, Maggie certainly relishes the attention; the shy flickers of Alex’s tongue against her nipples, teeth catching the curve underneath her breasts or over her bosom. 

On the third go around, Alex straddles her and drinks a mouthful of the wine. Breathing much heavier, Maggie watches her savouring the taste, her lips stained red with it. She tugs at the handcuffs, her cheeks warming as desperation takes its first stab at her. She lifts her hips against Alex, who says nothing and stares down at her. 

Then, without warning, she tips more wine over Maggie’s stomach. 

“You know, maybe I do like yoga,” Alex says thoughtfully, putting the wine back on the dresser and dipping the tips of her fingers in the little pools of crimson that form along Maggie’s clenching stomach. She traces along a defined abdominal muscle, her voice a drawl. “It gives you this body, after all.” 

“You’re pretty jacked yourself-”

Alex snaps up, planting two fingertips squarely on Maggie’s lips “This isn’t about me.”

Maggie takes the fingers into her mouth, moaning at the taste. She does this because she recognises the wine as her favourite, and has a flash of Alex picking the bottle out in the store for this very occasion. She swirls her tongue around the mid-knuckle joints twice before Alex pulls them free, hoping to encourage Alex to skip ahead of the rest of the teasing and slip them inside her. 

Alex kisses her and tasting it on her tongue is even sweeter. She tastes the fruits, the earth, and thinks Nature herself is confirming in this single act that Alex was indeed the equal she has longed for. 

“You’re distracting me from my plans,” Alex grumbles, narrowing her eyes.  

“Which are?” Maggie’s breath hitches as Alex shifts her hips between her legs, grinding down once. 

Alex leans down close enough that Maggie feels her breath tickle over her lips. “I’m gonna make you come in my mouth.” 

Maggie bucks involuntarily at the lewd suggestion, and Alex purrs as she kisses a lazy trail down her body. She laps at the wine on Maggie’s stomach. The click of metal on metal and the slight protest of the headboard are almost provocative as Maggie’s need grows exponentially.  

Knuckles flirt over the skin of her inner thighs, and Alex looks up through her eyelashes, nuzzling just above her belly button. Maggie’s muscles flex of their own accord, and Alex’s lips curl into a devilish smile.

“You’re just trying to make me squirm,” Maggie accuses, pulse thudding in her throat and between her thighs, desperate for that initial touch. 

“I don’t know about that,” Alex murmurs, lips drifting lower still. She pauses again, and her grin widens, “If you squirm anymore, I’m gonna have to tie your ankles, too.”

Maggie’s muscles visibly clench once more at the very brazen threat. “Maybe next time.”

Alex hums, hands smoothing around to Maggie’s hips as she lowers her head.

As the ripples of pleasure run through her, Maggie remembers the first time Alex went down on her. She’d been worried, maybe even more so than Alex had been, because she knew how intimidating it was when you had never done that to someone before. But Alex had carefully pulled off Maggie’s underwear - pausing to untwist it from the bend of Maggie’s knee, apologising like it was a huge misstep as Maggie giggled -  and, after a single second of hesitation, softly pressed her mouth against her. And then, with a hum her eyes fell shut, her hands curled around Maggie’s thighs, and she pressed again, with her tongue this time.

Since that, Alex has grown in confidence and skill. She knows how to get Maggie off, but she also knows the merit in dragging it out. Her soft mouth lends itself well to the act, and in bliss-filled nights Maggie has thanked God that the arrogant federal agent on the tarmac turned out to be a lesbian after all. 

“Alex…” Maggie pants, fisting her hands above her head.

Alex makes a noise of interest, and she moves her tongue over Maggie’s clit in a way that makes her complaint dissolve in a wave of heat, only to go back to teasing her. If Maggie’s hands were free she would tug at Alex’s hair and direct her back to exactly where she needs her. As it is, she can only strain against the cuffs and tilt her hips. 

Only when she meets Maggie’s gaze over the expanse of her trembling, wine-stained body does Alex give in and deliver Maggie to the heights she craves down to her bones. 

Her hands may be cuffed and her hips held in Alex’s tight grip, but Maggie’s body makes a good attempt to bow off of the beach towels anyway. A moan like she has never released bursts out of her mouth, so unexpected that Alex makes a noise of surprise against her. 

Limp, she falls back, almost glad that her hands were suspended. The final clack of the handcuffs against the rung of the headboard is like a hammerfall amongst Maggie’s gasps. Alex makes her way back up Maggie’s body, kissing here and there at her own pace. Then she rests her chin on a heaving sternum. 

Maggie eyes her suspiciously as she attempts to regain her composure. Her blood is sluggish in her veins. 

“That was good,” she says cautiously, knowing that the hunger in Alex’s expression hasn’t abated. “Thank you for-” 

“Oh, Maggie,” Alex says, rising up on her forearms, “We’re not done yet.”

She leers over her, grin toothy and dangerous in the dying evening light. 

“No?” Maggie prompts, arousal reviving itself in her system. 

Alex shakes her head, hair falling in waves around her cheeks. “Nope.”

She steals a kiss and hops off the bed. Maggie’s body protests as she arches her neck up to try and see what Alex is up to. She sees her bend down to hunt in the toy drawer. 

“You said to surprise you,” Alex announces, seeming to find what she was looking for. 

“You’ve definitely done that right,” Maggie says. 

“Well, I thought i’d surprise you some more.”

“What other surprises do you have up your-”

The buzz cuts her off. Alex turns, the red vibrator shimmering in her hand. Maggie’s entire body twitches in expectation. 

They’ve used the toy a few times before. She has used it a few times on Alex, enjoying the jerk of her thighs, the clawing at her wrist as she pressed the toy to Alex’s bundle of nerves and watched her body struggle to cope with the flood of sensation. She’d been intoxicated by the precious, pretty noises Alex makes. But when Alex had used it on her, she’d mostly used it in conjunction with seeking a certain kind of orgasm. She didn’t usually edge the way that Maggie did. 

But now, Maggie knows, payback is coming. Payback for exerting that risk; for playing along the line between pleasure and pain.  

Alex takes a seat at the end of the bed and begins at her feet this time. She clamps a hand around Maggie’s ankle and tickles along the arch of her foot. 

“Alex,” Maggie growls, her lover’s name sounding like a curse as she pulls again at the restraints on her wrists.

But Alex doesn’t heed the warning. She runs the vibrator up the backs of Maggie’s shins, the fleshy insides of her knees, up and around her thighs. She brushes it along the patterns of stained skin on Maggie’s stomach. 

Maggie whimpers and flexes her feet, her hands, pushing her face into her bicep. At the first vibrations bursting over her centre, she clamps her thighs shut and kicks out at the intensity. 

“What did I say about tying your ankles?” Alex says, extracting the toy and pushing Maggie’s legs apart again. 

“Jesus, Alex,” Maggie huffs. 

“Shhh,” Alex soothes, smiling and trailing her free hand over Maggie’s quivering stomach. Even in the hazy atmosphere of the bedroom, she knows Alex is having entirely too much fun now. 

Arousal pulses between her thighs, and when Alex finally grants her the vibrator where she needs it, it’s too much once more. But the pressure in insistent, circles become tight motions, and Maggie’s orgasm hits like a punch. She arches up, her hips lashing up against the toy, against Alex’s free hand gripping at her ribs, a series of cries tearing out of her throat.  

The toy clicks off, the activity ceasing. Maggie slumps back against the towels, her legs twitching with the shocks of such an intense orgasm. She presses her sweat-slicked forehead against her bicep and then drops her head back, gulping at the air. 

Alex shuffles around her, and she feels the twinge of pulled triceps. Alex unclicks the handcuffs, and then wiggles the key. Maggie rubs at her freed wrists. 

“I didn’t wanna be a stereotype and lose the key,” Alex jokes, setting them with a clink beside the remainder of the wine. 

Heart still pounding in her chest, Maggie encourages her back to straddle her hips. She feels sparks in her legs, up her spine, in her temples. They zip around her bloodstream and Maggie feels pierced through with the need to express her gratitude. This fantasy has been buried in her chest for years, and now she feels like an open trench, oxygenated and free.

“Have you been imagining this since I mentioned it?” she asks, finding her voice again. 

“I saw it in a TV show,” Alex replies, the cocky attitude receding, “You said surprise you and I guess this just… presented itself.” 

Maggie reaches up with a thumb to catch the crimson lips. “I’m glad it did.”

“Honestly, I was a little nervous.” 

“Paid off though.”

Alex shifts, and Maggie becomes aware of the damp underwear against her sticky stomach. Keeping her eyes on Alex’s she slides her hand with purpose between them. She pushes a single fingertip down further, and Alex’s eyelids flutter as she meets damp fabric. She doesn’t hesitate on the return, slipping her hand into Alex’s underwear. 

Alex’s head drops forward as with a simple press of fingers to wet heat, Maggie steals the very breath from her lungs. 

“Fuck,” Alex breathes, leaning down to mouth over the tendon of Maggie’s neck.

“You’re gonna make me lose concentration.”

“Please don’t.” 

The plea is enough to send Maggie’s free hand scratching across Alex’s scalp, just how Maggie knows she likes it. Maggie quickly establishes a familiar rhythm. She smells sex, shampoo and sweat and is overcome with the desire to reward Alex. Her teeth finds Alex’s earlobe, nose buried in tangled auburn hair.   

“You’re so wet,” she whispers, easily pushing two fingers inside her lover.

“It was so beautiful-” Alex’s voice falters as she groans. “-seeing you like that. Seeing you-  _ fuck _ \- come for me.” 

Alex is lost to her pleasure, rocking against Maggie’s hand, mouthing at her neck. 

It is a far cry from how shy Alex had been their first night, almost afraid to come, afraid of the pleasure inside. Of course, once she had a taste she was insatiable. She learned to nibble at Maggie’s neck, press her fingertips to hips, to her stomach, her ribs, everywhere that she knew would coax Maggie into fucking her again.

And now, above her, Alex chases her pleasure. Maggie marvels at the confidence she has to display her need, to push down against her hand. With a few more open mouthed moans hot against her neck, Alex loses control and ruts down against her palm.  

She nuzzles into Alex’s hair, murmuring encouragements as Alex becomes boneless on top of her. She slides her fingers free, and with a final shudder Alex tumbles over to the side. 

The sun has long since hidden itself away between the skyscrapers of National City, and the bedroom is fuzzy in the dull evening light. Yet neither of them move to turn on a lamp, content and sated to lie bare on top of the stained beach towels. The summer’s day has subsided and the air has begun to move again, filtering into the bedroom. 

Maggie listens to the drone of the AC, the last hour flickering back in her mind like a flipbook. She flips the pages faster and it only makes the memory more exciting. 

Alex’s fingertips are marking patterns across her own navel. She looks over with a dazed smile. Maggie laughs, raspy and incredulous. 

“That was  _ filthy _ , Danvers.”

“You seemed to enjoy it.”

Alex is so proud of herself, and Maggie can’t help but lean over. She lays there, pliant and happy to receive Maggie’s kisses. She pulls back, drawing over Maggie’s jaw like she had when she had begun this whole act. 

“I’m so in love with you,” she says, rushing out like a gust of wind in a storm. 

Taken aback at the ferocity of the statement, Maggie wonders how long she kept it trapped inside her ribcage, afraid that it would be too heavy for the sensuality that simmered between them only moments before.  

“Yeah?” Maggie prompts.

Alex swallows, nodding. Her thumb moves back and forth against Maggie’s jaw. Even after the dozen times that the word  _ love _ has been passed between them, even after all that they’ve done in this bed together this evening and before, Maggie sees the timid nature of Alex’s love. She knows Alex has never been in love before, and her heart aches.  

“Good,” she insists, “Because after all that, I was hoping you at least liked me.”

Alex’s expression blooms at the humour, and she laughs. After another minute of revelling in the afterglow, they get up. Bunching up the towels, Alex looks at the spots of crimson and sighs. “Damn, I don’t think those stains will come out. I’m sorry.”

Maggie takes them and throw them into the hamper on her way to the bathroom. “If not I’ll buy new ones. They were worth spoiling.”

In the shower, Alex kisses her wrists. There’s a tiny mark at Maggie’s wrist bone where the metal caught her skin, and Alex playfully nips at the other wrist because  _ it’s only fair, Maggie. _ They curl up and watch a few hours of a mindless Netflix comedy, Alex’s thumb gently brushing over Maggie’s wrists the entire time.  

Despite her best instincts, she lets Alex be the big spoon when they climb back into bed. Honestly, she enjoys being wrapped up in this woman’s arms. She remembers all of her hopes of equality, of wondering if Alex Danvers really could be the woman she had been searching for. They swim in her mind as she gives in to the weariness of her limbs.

“I better not wake up in handcuffs again,” she warns.

Alex’s chuckle shakes them both. “Tomorrow is Sunday. How am I gonna get my weekend pancakes if you’re handcuffed to the bed?”

They next chuckle they share, and Maggie shuffles further back against her. She settles onto her pillow, heaving out a long breath and closing her eyes. 

After a minute she says, “Hey, babe?”

Already halfway to oblivion, Alex sleepily replies, “Hmm?”

“I’m in love with you too.” 

She feels the curve of a smile against her neck, and then drops down into peace.  


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Begins before 2x10, and then continues after 2x19.
> 
> P.s. Sorry if you never watch 2x10 the same way.

It starts, as it often does in her relationship with Alex, with a curiosity. 

More accurately, it starts with Maggie’s stomach seizing up and her eyes rolling back, her hand buried in the red tresses between her legs. Steady hands guide her through her orgasm, and then stroke up her thighs as the rush of blood in her ears slows. 

Release still caressing her nerves, Maggie leans up on her elbows, chest heaving as she tries to catch her breath. She gently pushes against Alex’s forehead, growing just about too sensitive. Her girlfriend pulls back with a smile, wiping the edges of her mouth. It is only the fourth time Alex has done this, but as evidenced by the fact that Maggie’s heart still hammers against her breastbone, the increasing confidence and skill is leaving quite the impression. 

She slides her heels along the sheets and flattens out her legs, enjoying the way her body sings with the afterglow. Alex rests her head on Maggie’s thigh, brushing mindless circles around Maggie’s hipbone. 

“What are you thinking about?” Maggie asks, catching Alex’s hand and lacing their fingers together. 

“That doing that is so much better than-” Alex cuts herself off, her mouth working itself into an uncomfortable twist. 

Maggie may be a lesbian, but she is a cop, after all. She heard it daily when she was in uniform. Men spitting at her, telling her to  _ go suck a cock _ . Back then, she had days when she felt like the world was pitted against gay people, but if there was one thing that the scum crawling around in the city’s darkest holes had taught her, it was to be grateful that she never had to perform that particular act on any man.   

“Sorry,” Alex eventually finishes, glancing up and confirming that she knows Maggie caught her connotations without her saying it. 

“Don’t apologise.” Maggie runs her finger along the bridge of Alex’s nose, down to the curve and back up to smooth out the crinkle in her brow. “I’m glad you enjoy it.” 

Alex’s worry recedes as she tries a tentative smile. “I bet you are.”

“I mean you  _ have _ taken to it pretty well.”

At the compliment, Alex pushes up and kisses her. Satisfaction sizzles at the taste of herself on Alex’s lips and tongue, so much so that her toes curl. Eventually they break, and Alex rolls to the side on what is becoming her side of the bed. Usually, Maggie prefers the left side, but Alex seems to be favouring it and if there’s anyone that she is willing to give it up for, it’s this agent. 

“So what else?”

“What?”

“I mean, you said there’s-” Alex yawns, to Maggie’s amusement. “-a lot I’ve still got to learn.” 

“You wanna continue your gay education or you wanna sleep?” Maggie asks. She sits up and reaches for the sheets that had slipped down to the foot of the bed as they made love. She covers Alex, and then herself, laying back down. 

Alex bunches up her pillow, patting it and getting comfortable. “I feel like it’s the slang.” She closes her eyes, and then snickers, seeming to remember something. “I remember a barbecue in Midvale, all my friends came around. They all asked Kara if she would toss their salad.”

“Teenagers,” Maggie snorts. 

Alex is quiet, she settles further. Maggie thinks she might be slipping into sleep, but then her brow furrows. “She did it, too. I mean, not  _ that _ . But she just...she got the tongs and she was so confused, but she’d flip and poke at their lettuce and tomatoes and…” 

“Alex?”

There is a storm in Alex’s gaze. “All she wanted was to make some friends. She didn’t understand why we were all laughing at her.” Her tired voice grows thick. Maggie can hear the pain that the memory has only now come to hold through age and maturity. “God, I was such an asshole.” 

Maggie shakes her head at the muttering, turning on her side. Alex stares down, boring a hole in the sheets at Maggie’s hip. 

“That the term you wanna go with in this context?” 

Alex’s gaze snaps up to her. “Hey!”

“Listen,” Maggie says, placing a hand on Alex’s cheek, “You’re the best sister now, okay? We’re all shitty people when we’re kids.” 

Alex smiles, encouraged by the words. Maggie leans over to dust a single kiss on the apple of her cheek, and then twists back to turn off the bedside lamp. Even in the shuttered darkness, Maggie can see the way the momentary tension has slumped out of Alex’s system

She lays down on her own pillow, closing her eyes and taking a calming breath. Then she looks back over at Alex’s outline. “And for the record, now that you’re an out lesbian, it’s vegan ice cream.”

“Gross. Who eats  _ vegan _ ice cream?” Alex snuffles, getting caught on the hook of the dietary term. Maggie watches the true meaning strike, and when the question is repeated, it is much more shrill. “Oh my god, who  _ eats _ vegan ice cream?!”

Maggie laughs, imagining the precious, innocent face staring at her in the dark as she falls asleep. 

Unfortunately, despite their activities, Maggie doesn’t sleep well that night. The sex had been a welcome distraction from the case that topped her current pile, but as Alex sleeps peacefully beside her, she tosses and turns. Exhaustion gnaws at her bones as she drags herself to the kitchen at dawn, opening up her briefcase as the coffeemaker starts. She yanks out the blue back that an ADA informed her might be useful and sets to work.  

Alex slouches into the kitchen, and in her expression Maggie knows she has woken up in a mood that she occasionally gets into. One where she brims with questions, wide-eyed and nodding, absorbing every word that Maggie tells her.  

Seeing Maggie has no breakfast or coffee in front of her and has already dove into work, Alex shuffles around the cupboards for them both, and Maggie shoots her a grateful look. 

They still haven’t said a word by the time Alex pours the coffee. 

“Do people really do that?”

Sleepy and dreading work, Maggie has no time for formalities: “Eat ass?”

Startled at how Maggie already knows what had obviously stuck with her from the night before, Alex falls into the seat opposite. “...Yes.”

“Yes, they do.”

The kitchen is lulled into the sound of Maggie’s neighbours through the thin wall, Alex blowing across the surface of her coffee, and the flipping pages of the blue back as Maggie makes her way through the case. She recognises some of the details, remembering a hot summer working in an affluent suburb where she had leant out her skills and experience from the  inner city division. 

Still, even as she mulls over the reports, she can hear the question that is coming before Alex even mounts the courage to ask. 

“Have you ever-”

“Yup.”

“Oh.” Alex acknowledges, nodding and fidgeting with her coffee cup. “That’s nice.”

“It’s not for everyone.” 

Maggie reads her signature on the bottom of a statement and grits her teeth. The confirmation brings a surge of memory all at once and she sighs, scrubbing the back of her neck. The blue back falls closed with a flop, and she deflates back against the kitchen chair. She tugs her coffee over and takes a sip, and her irritation immediately abates. 

Alex has already learned exactly how she likes it. She cracks a smile at the thought, and butts the agent’s knee with her sock-clad toe, shaking her out of her daydream. 

“Morning,” she says, like an apology for the snappiness.

Alex brightens. “Morning. Tough case?”

Just like that, Maggie softens further. She does something she has never done with another woman, and slides the blue back over. Alex sets down her mug, methodically working through the crime scene report, the forensic analysis, the photographs of the victim. She doesn’t make a face, or complain to Maggie that she’s squeamish or it’s too early or that she isn’t interested in  _ that _ aspect of Maggie’s job. Instead she reads, and sips her coffee, and withholds any snide comments she may have. 

And with something as insignificant as Alex licking her thumb to turn the page, Maggie feels an old barrier erected long in her past crumbling down. 

They’re shopping together when the matter comes up again. Bickering about who should get to push the cart and who should be the one to run around grabbing the items, they overhear a young man lingering at the front of the store. He holds a phone to his ear, smoking a cigarette. 

“Oh for sure… oh yeah… that boy would eat my ass all night if I let him.”

Alex’s hands clench on the cart, knuckles turning white, and Maggie decides to let her push after all. Her girlfriend seems to be in a daze, and she has to ask Alex three times whether she thinks it’s better to get iceberg lettuce or chopped lettuce for tonight’s salad bowl. 

“What?”

“When we have Kara over tonight, should we get a whole iceberg lettuce or just a mixed packet?” she asks, balancing the iceberg in the palm of one hand, scrunching the plastic packet in the other. 

“Oh, uh,” Alex stalls, shaking herself out of disorientation, “Packet. Iceberg is too much.”

Maggie drops the packet into the cart and puts the full head back onto the shelf. Alex pushes on a few inches further, staring into the cart as if she is confused at how the contents got there.  

“Can you just ask what you want to ask?” Maggie asks, pretending to eye a yellow  _ special offer _ label.

Alex glances at a passing customer, only speaking when they have the aisle to themselves. 

“Is it a gay thing?”

Maggie blinks, reeling back. “I feel like I should be offended.”

“No, I dont-” Alex pinches the bridge of her nose. “I take that back, I’m sorry.”

Clenching her jaw, Maggie picks up a packet of mushrooms. Alex makes a face, but Maggie drops them into the cart anyway. The disgust she sees etched into Alex’s expression only exacerbates a pulse of anger inside.  

Reaching the fruit, they pass over a bag of oranges because some of the skins have already gone into mush. Maggie thinks the rotten fruit is timely. She can understand that the act is taboo, and has all kinds of misconceptions attached regarding both hygiene and culture. But she isn’t about to let Alex make her feel ashamed of doing something with another woman which they both found gratification in.  

They shop, and they pay, and then they pack the back of Maggie’s cruiser without much more than question and answer pairs. 

Alex heaves two heavy bags and broaches the topic again. “I just don’t understand why you would want someone to… do that to you.”

Maggie rearranges a bag that is about to spill its contents. “I didn’t say I let someone do it to me.”

“Fine, then doing it to someone-”

She cuts off at the slam of the trunk. Maggie drums her fingers on the top, narrowing her eyes. “You know, for someone who is pretending they have an aversion to this, you’re bringing it up a lot.” 

“I just-” Alex’s cheeks redden. “I don’t understand why people like that.”

“Not everyone’s tastes are yours,” Maggie reminds her, her word choice deliberate. 

“It just seems…” Alex trails off and clears her throat, getting into the passenger seat. 

Maggie stares over the top of the cruiser, trying to regain her patience, trying not to think about how similar Alex’s tone is to the homophobic jibes she has encountered over her career. She gets into the driver’s side, trying not to yank too hard on the door.  

“It just seems unsanitary,” Alex finishes. 

“What point are you trying to prove?” Maggie asks, starting up the engine. “Look, if you’re interested in this and don’t know how to ask for it, this isn’t the way to go about it.” Her voice is hard as she jams the seatbelt into the buckle. “And if you’re not, then drop it.” 

By the time they reach Maggie’s apartment, guilt about losing her patience has already set up a home in her chest. Alex is curious and nervous about things. They have only been sleeping together for a few weeks, and she is foraging into this relationship mostly through Maggie’s guidance. 

It occurs to Maggie that Alex has probably been with men who more or less made her feel she  _ had _ to do things, and Alex picking up all of these bits and pieces of sexuality might make her feel the same way now. 

They unpack the grocery bags, and Alex’s timid apology comes between the rattle of bags and the thunk of produce being offloaded onto the counter. “I’m sorry if I offended you.”

“You didn’t. I want you to know that you don’t have to do anything with me that you aren’t comfortable with.” She reaches over and squeezes Alex’s bicep. “In fact, I get it. I’ve never asked anyone to do that to me.”

“Never?”

Of anyone, Emily had gotten the closest to Maggie. They had done things Maggie never repeated with another woman. In the context they find themselves in, Maggie recalls some play with toys and lots of lube. It was only a handful of times and really, she’d only done it on those whimsical kinds of nights. She had been wide-eyed and naive, and believed that their relationship would last a lifetime. And yet outside of a plug or two, there had been hard borders that she set, and Emily using her mouth had been one of them. Even for a relationship that had spanned five years, it felt intimate in a way that made her body feel like a shell that didn’t fit anymore. 

Perhaps part of her had known that it wouldn’t last a lifetime. Sure, they had bought toys together, used them on each other, but she’d never let Emily lie over her and fuck her with her hips. Had never let Emily really touch her in that way for long. Had never let her restrain her.

Maggie shakes her head, producing actual vegan ice cream. She swishes the tub to show Alex the label. “Is this more your taste?”

Alex rolls her eyes, but looks unsure until Maggie kisses her cheek. 

A few days later, she can see the effort that Alex has been putting in since the shopping trip, and affirms her dedication to being more patient with Alex’s sexuality. She wants to draw these curiosities out, help her experiment, not force her back into the closet or shoot down her burgeoning fantasies just because of how the world at large has forced Alex to view sex and the human body in a certain way. 

She is sitting at Alex’s kitchen table, contemplating how she could go about bringing up the subject again when she gets a text from her precinct’s alert system. 

“Leslie Willis just broke outta jail,” she reads. Alex chokes on the water she had been sipping, but before Maggie can follow up, another message comes through. “Krasney says the FBI are handling it. I’m guessing that’s code for you guys.” 

Sure enough, Alex’s phone goes on the counter. She rears up to read it. “Wanna come with me?”

Maggie cracks a huge smile. Even with the tangle that they had lost themselves in with Alex’s coming out and them finally getting together, Maggie has come to view those early inclusions in crime scenes as their version of a courting ritual. 

“Obviously,” she replies. 

At the scene itself, Maggie senses static in the air. More than once, she catches Alex staring at her ass. They are still learning each other’s mannerisms, but she knows now that Alex wants something she isn’t sure how to ask for. The disagreement that crops up about Kara provides the perfect window of opportunity. 

“If I’m right, you gotta try vegan ice cream.”

“That’s disgusting,” Alex retorts, but the intensity of her stare feels more like a challenge; “If I win, my place tonight.”

Maggie’s chest constricts in the same way it does each time she cracks a case wide open. Alex doesn’t refute the vegan ice cream, her only change being the location. She figures this might be so that Alex is more comfortable in her own home, and this makes the loss of the bet a little sweeter. 

“Well, chez-Danvers it is,” she concedes.

Alex gives her a look, like she won, but then focuses on Kara and it’s dropped until later in the DEO. They linger at the railing as Kara excuses herself, and in the absence of her sister, Maggie sees the change in Alex’s body language. 

“So she let Livewire go…”

“Mmmhmm.” Alex keeps it as neutral as she can, but Maggie can see her biting the inside of her cheek to fight a smile.  

“And that means vegan ice cream at my place tonight.”

“Gross, I never should have taken that bet,” Alex groans, nudging against Maggie, who interprets it as  _ I’m not refusing it _ . 

Two hours after she gets back from the DEO she hears a knock on her door. Alex shifts from foot to foot, and holds up a bag with a sheepish expression. Maggie takes it, catching the sweet, strawberry scent Alex has when she is freshly showered.

“I’ll put these in the freezer,” Maggie says, waking away and giving Alex space.

As she puts away the ice cream and pours them both wine, Alex fidgets with the ends of her blouse and paces around the kitchen, restless as if it were her first time there.

“You know Alex, you seem really uncomfortable,” Maggie says, abandoning the bottle and rounding in front of her restless girlfriend, “I don’t want to do anything that-”

“No, I want you to,” Alex finally admits. 

Maggie rocks forward on her toes, enjoying the flitter of Alex’s eyes down to her lips. “You want me to what?”

Alex winces. “Don’t make me say it.” 

Maggie laughs, leaving the wine on the counter and pulling her into the bedroom. 

~

Alex Danvers, it turns out, can be convinced of many things when they involve her girlfriend’s mouth on her. 

While it had been a heavy topic, she soon discovers the thrill of indulging in the taboo, and over the next few months, it turns into a running joke between them. She has grown comfortable in her own skin and lavished under the ministrations, and simply doesn’t understand why Maggie won’t let her reciprocate. 

Alex tries to throw vegan ice cream into another bet, but Maggie smiles and shakes her head. They are stuck in traffic on the way to dinner, trying to figure out if they will make it to their reservation on time or if they might be late. 

“I let you do it to me!” she protests.

“You want me to,” Maggie reminds her.

At a standstill in the congestion, Alex leans over the console and presses a kiss to Maggie’s cheek. She whispers: “Didn’t you once tell me that I had a pretty, soft mouth?”

“I was pretty drunk at the time,” Maggie deadpans, turning to kiss Alex properly and then pulling away as traffic starts forward again. 

“So I  _ don’t _ have a pretty, soft mouth?” Alex says, returning to her seat with a pout. 

Maggie grins instead of answering, and doesn’t fight her too much, especially since she treats them to dinner at the restaurant that serves her favourite homemade tiramisu. Back at Alex’s apartment, they take off their shoes, pour themselves some scotch and end up dancing to a playlist of brassy New York jazz numbers inspired by the restaurant.

Alex’s lips curl up at Maggie’s temple as they sway. “Come on, Maggie. Be adventurous.”

Maggie finds a gap in Alex’s dress, nipping her shoulder instead of replying. It only goads Alex into pushing a little further, sliding her hands down to the small of Maggie’s waist. 

“You know uptight I was, and I ended up enjoying-” she lowers her voice, smokey tone almost masking her humour as she purrs; “Rimming…”

“ _ Uptight _ , huh?”

They share giggles and scotch-soaked kisses until they tumble backwards onto the rug in front of the fire, and then there isn’t space for discussion at all. 

Another time, they’re in Midvale. Eliza and Kara are chattering in the living room, while Alex and Maggie offer to do the dishes. Maggie is scrubbing grease out of a pan when Alex wraps her up from behind.

“All that food, but you were the only one who looked good enough to eat,” she says, a warm husk in Maggie’s ear as her hand trails down to squeeze her ass, letting her true meaning ring clear.  

“Did you tell Eliza you didn’t enjoy dinner?”

Alex stiffens, processing her error, but then sets her chin on Maggie’s shoulder. “You know that’s not what I meant.”

Her hands begin to wander again and Maggie flicks water at her. 

“Behave,” she warns, earning herself a swat on the ass with the tea towel. 

One early summer afternoon, Alex comes home to find Maggie in a suggestive downward dog position. It has only been a few days since Alex wore a strap on for the first time, but she has proven to have a primal, insatiable appetite to try it again and again. She lines up their hips, gently grinding forward. 

“Welcome home indeed,” she says faintly, smoothing her hand up Maggie’s spine. 

“You should be so lucky,” Maggie says, straightening up and turning her head for a kiss. Alex’s hands slide around her hip bones. 

“You know, I’m kinda craving vegan ice cream after that,” she says innocently, “Think there’s a connection?”

Maggie smirks, giving her one more kiss before bending back over. “Can’t imagine it, no.”

But while Maggie and Alex have been joking about this for a while, there has always been an unspoken agreement that that is all the issue will stay: a joke. She doesn’t expect that to ever change, but when it does, it is instantaneous. There is no build up, no gestures, no discussion. 

She sits at the kitchen table, finalising the booking for Alex’s birthday weekend.  The laptop is open and over the lid she can see Alex spinning a butter knife around her fingers like it’s one of the fancy weapons at the DEO. In the comfort of her apartment, she airdrums to a song on the docking station, and Maggie is snapped back to two weeks before, as she watched Alex bobbing her head through the window of the chinese takeaway.  

And with that image comes the multitude of others: Alex’s surprise at the mention of handcuffs, her reaction to Maggie’s confession on the couch, Alex above her as she played out Maggie’s long hidden fantasy a week later.  

She fills with love. She fills with that feeling she had when she was with Emily, like she could love this woman forever. Except she never let Emily cuff her, she never let Emily fuck her exactly like Alex had. She certainly never let Emily put her on the top of a dresser and slowly screw her until she was practically clawing at the dark knots in the wood. 

She has let down more guards with Alex, trusted her with new experiences. They have reached intimacies and shared vulnerabilities that she never had before. Just this morning, after the dresser incident, Alex had looked down at the toy still connecting them and contrived a stupid joke that had Maggie feeling totally exposed and protected all at once.  

Her arms tight around Alex’s shoulders, she had existed in a paradox. She felt wild, but domestic. She felt unstable, but she felt safe. 

She finishes up with the hotel booking and then closes her laptop. She props her chin on her hand and watches Alex pretend to suspend her sticks for a break before crashing them onto her imaginary crash cymbals. She twirls the butter knife again, lost in the beat and rhythm of the song playing through the speakers, and Maggie is utterly in love. 

She has gone further into herself with Alex than with any other woman. She has taken her hand and led her into the woods which she had already written off as too dark and smokey for anyone to truly love, and Alex had kicked at a bundle of leaves and said:  _ Perfect place to set up camp _ . 

And she had. Every time Alex said I love you, it was carefully phrased, consciously shared.

Maggie experiences the switch inside. The knowledge that she will not refuse Alex anything she wants, or needs, or desires. She has proven time and again that she can be trusted with Maggie at her most insecure, unsure or even anxious. With soft eyes, a soft smile, she can hold the pieces of Maggie together and never let her break. 

Later, they’re packing. Alex is a ball of energy, folding clothes and stealing kisses.

It makes Maggie grin as she holds out a pair of boots. “How do you want to start your birthday celebrations?” 

Alex skips the boots and grabs her wrist, pulling her in so that they’re chest to chest. 

“I think you know,” she says, suggestion dripping in her tone. 

Without taking her eyes off of Alex’s, Maggie throws the boots into their case, and then winds her arms around her girlfriend’s neck. “Well in that case, maybe I should tell you about your first present.”

Unexpectedly, the playfulness in Alex’s expression softens. “Maggie, you’re already treating me to this weekend away.”  

It is true that Maggie has gotten Alex a number of gifts, because Alex had showered her with love, affection and materialism on her own birthday. But there is one present in particular that she wants to see Alex’s reaction to.  

“What if I told you-” She jabs at Alex’s chest. “That once we get to that hotel room, I’d let you do anything to me?” 

“Anything?” Alex drawls, clasping her hands around Maggie’s waist and pulling her closer. 

Maggie nods. “Anything you want.”

Alex’s eyes trail away in thought, and then it clicks. “ _ Anything _ I want?” she echoes. 

“Yes.”

“Even vegan ice cream?”

“Even vegan ice cream.”

Jolted at the lack of refusal, Alex doubletakes. “Wait, really?”

“Yeah, really.”

Alex’s eyebrows skyrocket. “You’re not… kidding, are you?” 

“If it’s what you want, it’s what I’ll try.” 

The kiss that Alex sears on her lips makes her know that this decision is worth it. 

The whole way to the hotel, Alex is a pure rascal. Maggie knows exactly what she’s thinking about as they check in, as they get settled in their room, as Alex pulls her into the ensuite and pulls her shirt up over her head. They have time to kill before their dinner reservations, and Alex wastes no time in pressing Maggie against the tiled wall.

“Anything I want?” she murmurs, ducking out of the spray and kissing Maggie’s jaw.

“Anything,” Maggie promises.

Alex dries her body for her. Seeing her lover on her knees, toweling her body for her feels like a sacrament, or a worship. Up her legs, across her torso and shoulder blades to catch the stray drips running down her frame and finally her hair. Even Alex’s sly smile before she turns Maggie and pushes her down onto the sheets feels like a blessing of goodwill. 

Maggie grabs two of the pillows from above her, placing one below her hips and the other below her head. She shifts this way and that, and then sighs. 

“Comfortable?” Alex prompts.

“Yeah.” Maggie twists over her shoulder. “Remember, once you use your mouth-”

“Don’t let it stray from the restricted zone?” Alex grins, facetious. “Got it.”

As Alex straddles her thighs, Maggie shivers from her neck to her tailbone. She feels Alex’s breasts press against her as she leans down to nuzzle into the knot at the top of her spine. Hands slip up her neck and into her hair, and electricity crackles to life across her scalp. Fingertips knead downwards to her neck, her shoulders, trickling over her ribcage like rain against the window. They rest there, as if Alex were trying to study her every breath.   

Then lips find the top of her spine, moving down each vertebrae in turn. She can feel Alex mouthing silently, and she wonders if she is trying to impress the names of each bone into her skin. Alex’s hands begin to sweep down further, as if sculpting and crafting, as if making Maggie something entirely new. 

Arousal builds as it often does if she is on her belly, winding like an alarm clock. Each click of the clocks works her springs tighter, and she by the time Alex’s mouth is at her tailbone, she’s biting her lower lip in anticipation. 

When Alex’s mouth eventually finds her, it’s a cheeky probe of her tongue first, enough to make Maggie twitch. The explorations begin, tentative at first, and Maggie waits for what she feared: that feeling she imagined, the one where she wants to crawl out of a shell that is too small for her.  

Except, she doesn’t feel that way. Those tightening cogs in her belly only tighten with Alex’s soft moans against her, or how she presses the pad of her thumb just so, and then eases off again. 

“Alex,” she pants, tight with repressed need.

“You didn’t make it that easy for me,” Alex says lazily, sliding her thumb up and teasing at Maggie’s entrance. She applies and retracts pressure with the pad, returning her mouth to its previous task. 

With her free hand, Alex pushes a finger inside of her centre, and Maggie muffles the obscene noise she makes as she realises how wet she is. Without issue, Alex adds a second finger. It takes her longer to find a comfortable rhythm with her non-dominant hand, and yet Maggie finds her hips undulating, craving it anyway. 

Just as the tension mounts to an uncomfortable pitch, a number of things happen at once. Alex instinctively strokes her thumb over where Maggie needs it, she adds a third finger, and she sinks her teeth into Maggie’s flesh. With the stretch and the flash of surprise, the tension skittering down Maggie’s body falls like a stack of dominoes.

The pleasure bottoms out in her stomach, racing up and down her back. Alex’s fingertips had woken up the nerves on her path down and they go up in a blaze of pleasure. Alex might be talking to her as she slides her fingers free, but she doesn’t comprehend it.

It ends in degrees, her very blood exulting as it thuds around her thighs, up her biceps, down her back, at her temples. She groans into the pillow, tension leaving her limbs one by one until she is sprawled, limp and satisfied, against the soft hotel sheets. 

Pulse thumping in her throat, she can feel the saliva now cooling and drying on her flesh, still feels the sting of Alex’s bite. The reminder of Alex’s unrelenting passion erases any unpleasantness. 

“I think we’re gonna need to shower again,” she mumbles, lost into the pillow. 

Alex adjusts her position on Maggie’s thighs, tracing the bite tenderly. “I’m sorry.”

“For biting my ass?” Maggie waves blindly behind her, coaxing Alex down to her. “It worked, didn’t it?”

Alex lets out a happy huff as she lays over Maggie’s back. She feels Alex’s ear amongst the tangle of her hair, and thinks that the fact she can hear her heartbeat adds a sacred atmosphere in the afterglow. Comforted by the weight of Alex, her eyelids flutter closed. 

A single fingertip taps at her ribs, moving up one by one. Feeling the gentle puffs of air on her back as Alex breathes, the expansion of her chest as she rests against her lower back, Maggie gets the most indescribable, unattainable notion of fitting their ribcages together to share one breath.

“I love you so much,” Alex whispers.

“Are you only saying that because you…” Maggie can’t control the laughter that escapes and rocks them both. “Because you tasted vegan ice cream?”

They both descend into laughter, Alex tracing the swell of Maggie’s breast. She reaches down to stroke along Alex’s flank, savouring this moment for just a few seconds longer, and then she sobers.  

“Go brush your teeth so I can kiss you,” she instructs, patting Alex’s thigh. 

With one last peck to the ridge of her shoulder blade, Alex bounds off of the bed towards the bathroom ensuite. Maggie listens to her garbled, toothbrush-impeded singing, her scrubbing and shucking, all over the rushing water. She doesn’t understand why, but Alex’s frivolity begins to rub off on her.

She is going to go to dinner tonight. She is going to feel warm patch of her skin where her lover sunk her teeth in each time she shifts in her seat. She is going to remember the way Alex had done an act that has held such a forbidden status across history and culture, and still whispered her love into Maggie’s skin. 

The bed dips as Alex rejoins her, and she turns her head. With a wiggle of her eyebrows, Alex leans in to kiss her, and she sighs into minty kisses.

“Happy birthday, baby,” she mumbles.

Alex nibbles at her lip, prodding at Maggie’s hip. “I know we’re going to dinner later but in terms of eating-”

“Alex Danvers, don’t even think about finishing that sentence.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the early upload. Let me know what you think in the comments :)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Set just after the last chapter.

Everything shimmers with brilliance against the night; the candlelight on the table, the buildings along the riverbank, the moonlight on the river’s surface. 

Maggie watches a barge amble down towards them. She can see the diner on the upper deck, waiters darting back and forth between the tables. The bar is aglow in purple tinted lighting, and she can’t help but feel a twinge of disappointment. Her original booking had been a table on that deck, a peaceful lull of a journey up and down the river as they wined and dined. 

Unfortunately, mere weeks before Alex’s birthday, she had almost died in a water tank. Maggie knew they were lucky to get a reservation at a sweet Italian restaurant along the river bank instead, yet still she sighs. 

Alex is looking at her with her chin on her palm, a content smile on her face. 

“What?” she asks.

“I’m just watching you watching the riverboats,” Alex replies. 

Maggie shifts to face her fully. “Sorry.” 

“No, don’t be.” Alex reaches over to catch one of her hands, stroking her thumb along the back. “I can’t help thinking how beautiful you are, and how in love with you I am.”

Even with the beautiful night and romantic atmosphere, Alex’s genuity is endearing. Maggie chases away those residual fears about losing this woman and cements herself back in the present. 

“You’re buttering me up so you can order the most expensive things on the menu, aren’t you?” she teases.

Alex’s eyebrows lift. “Maybe so.”

A waiter comes around to top up the wine in their glasses, yet Alex’s doesn’t remove her hand from Maggie’s. She has had girlfriends who were proud and open with their affection in public, and others who were more skittish. Alex, for all her inexperience, is not shy about displaying their relationship without making it a statement, and Maggie loves her for striking that perfect balance. 

Honestly, she is astonished at this relationship in practise compared with the hang ups that she attached to it on paper. It is constantly new and familiar at once, like finding a sweater at the back of a closet and rediscovering how well it fits.  

“I got us one of those tables, actually,” Maggie says, nodding to the barge as it sidles by, “But I changed it after…” 

The waiter finishes filling their glasses and skitters off to alight at another table. Alex’s mouth pulls at the corners, and Maggie knows that the end of the sentence didn’t need to be said to be heard. 

“Anyway,” she continues, “I hope you don’t mind I changed it?”

Alex withdraws her hand from Maggie’s, picking up the stem of her wine glass and swirling her wine. Maggie watches her neck constrict, the phantom tendrils of fear choking out a second or two of breath, before a playful smile appears. 

“You thought I’d throw you over the side, huh?” she jeers. 

Maggie laughs. “Maybe so,” she mocks, echoing Alex’s earlier jibe. 

The waiter returns and they order. He smiles, all teeth and gelled quiff, and tells them that they both made excellent choices. Considering they have heard him say that to two previous tables nearby, they take this with a pinch of salt. He takes their menus and prances off through the outdoor tables again.     

“Are you enjoying your birthday?” Maggie asks. 

“I am.” Alex smiles and rests her chin on her palm again, bliss shining over her eyes. “I really am.”

“Good.”

A single, simple word, but Maggie means it. She had been willing to tarnish her own reputation, rip up her moral code just to save Alex. During the search a few weeks ago, she had found a quiet corner of the DEO base and prayed, remembering verses from her youth. She had abandoned religion years ago but swore she would be in the front row of Sunday morning mass if it brought Alex back to her. 

On the following Saturday night she had picked up a case and missed most of the scheduled services across National City, but made a point to call into St. Peter’s Cathedral to leave a donation and light a candle. It may have been ironic, because Alex had survived, but she struck a match and watched the tiny flame burn as a symbol of her gratitude.

The candlelight on their table reminds her of that small votive, flaming against the darkness of the chapel.  

In the meantime, Maggie would give Alex anything and everything she desired. With their previous afternoon activities, she has proven that really meant anything at all. 

“Anything in particular you want to do?” she asks, “I know you said you wanted to visit the Museum of Natural History tomorrow afternoon, but we have the whole weekend to enjoy our getaway.” 

The Metropolis Museum of Natural History is known for its special exhibits, which it changes every few months. This month has seen an update in the collection of dinosaur bones, of which one set- Alex claims- isn’t a dinosaur at all, but an alien exoskeleton. If her suspicions are correct, then she may call it into the local DEO branch, but Maggie’s job is to distract her from work, so she hopes it won’t come to that. 

Alex leers forward, retrieving her hand from the table and pressing a kiss like a promise to her knuckles. “There are a few things I still want to do to you.”

“Alex, this is your birthday getaway,” Maggie scolds, not bothering to fight the grin spreading over her face, “We should be concentrating on you.”

She keeps her voice pointed even through her expression so that Alex knows she is following along with her implications. Alex’s attention drifts away to the next barge, a rowdier one, as it moves down the river. 

“I know. And I want to do this.” She turns back, the mixture of want and plea caught in the dancing candlelight shadows across her face. “Please, Maggie?”

Maggie worries her lower lip. She feels guilty that this is Alex’s birthday weekend, but so far all she seems to want it to give or to do. Yes, everything is Maggie’s treat, and she’s being showered with gifts from her friends and family, but when it comes to the aspect of what happens when they go to bed together, all Alex wants is to please, rather than be pleasured herself. 

Her listening skills lag, but when they catch up, Maggie realises something odd about what Alex said. 

“When you say  _ this... _ ?” she prompts.

“It’s a surprise,” Alex retorts. 

“I’d say I hate surprises, but you’ve been pretty good at them so far.”

“Just trust me.”

Alex’s thumb strokes up the side of her finger like persuasion, and Maggie immediately trusts her. She remembers whispering  _ Just trust me _ into Alex’s ear the first time they had sex, and hears the haughty reply of  _ Please, touch me _ . Alex had hidden her face in embarrassment, and Maggie had adored her for it. 

After that first night, Alex rarely begged, and honestly, Maggie was too selfish, too greedy, too eager to wrap herself up in Alex’s body to delay the inevitable. Tonight would be no different. She would indulge in the delights, push Alex as far as her body could go. She’d brought paraphernalia and a plan, and a determination to make Alex’s birthday the best she ever had.

“Fine. But tomorrow you can have your fun,” Maggie says, “Tonight, you deserve to be ravished.”

~

Maggie wakes up alone. 

She stretches, and catches the flap of a silk tie where it had been left on the gold-painted headboard.

It had started with the look in Alex’s eyes, that she wanted Maggie to take her, take everything that she was willing to give. It started with the pure sin in her expression as Maggie fed her dessert, leading to a filthy night in these hotel sheets. That look stayed as Maggie licked the sweat from her collarbone, as she tied knots of silk around delicate wrists and ankles, as her neck arched in a moan, the noise vibrating off every surface. It remained when they kissed and enjoyed a brief respite. Shared a-

_ “You okay?” _

_ “More than okay.” _

Stayed as Maggie bound her wrists at her tailbone. Stayed as Maggie pulled on a toy and fucked her slowly, curling her hips forward and murmuring,  _ “Are you sure this is comfortable?” _

Now Maggie smirks, lifting a hand to play with the end of the silk tie. They were fortunate to be in such good physical shape, because it meant that they could have sex in more than one contorted position. She remembers Alex like that, lying on her side as she bore down against her. 

She remembers the groan as Alex hooked her leg as well as she could behind Maggie’s hips, inviting her deeper. The pleasure had washed over Alex’s profile, the flush anew. From this position, she could track the taunt muscles of Alex’s biceps as she pulled at her wrists, the beating of her pulse under her jaw. 

She slips out of bed and pads into the ensuite. The toy is washed and ready for use again at the side of the sink. She can’t help but shiver, remembering how she covered Alex’s body with her own and whispered depravities that she isn’t even sure she could repeat now. 

She slips on one of the complimentary white robes and wonders if she should surprise Alex. 

“Babe?” she calls, but her initial evaluation that Alex wasn’t in the room is correct. She sits herself down in front of the TV and surfs the channels, watching the early morning news. She guesses that Alex might be on a run, or out getting them breakfast. Her mouth tingles at the thought of coffee and pastries. 

Still, her heart sinks that she didn’t wake up before. Again, that guilt that she is disappointing Alex, letting her down on a weekend that was supposed to be dedicated to her rises up. 

She switches off the TV. The dead air in the hotel room makes her uneasy. She gets up and rounds the couch, the hairs rising on the back of her neck. Ever since Alex was taken by Rick, Maggie has been uncomfortable about letting her girlfriend out of her sight. The agent didn’t need coddling, yet the trauma for both of them is palpable.   

Unnoticed all this time is a trolley by the hotel door. As she approaches, she spies two envelopes propped against a fruit bowl on the top shelf. The scrawl on the first reads her name in Alex’s cursive handwriting, and the other is a little bulkier. She opens the marked card. 

_ Dear Maggie _

_ I’m sorry you’re waking up alone. Believe me, I wanted to wake up beside you this morning, but once you read this you’ll figure out why I’m not there right now. A few weeks ago you told me that one of your fantasies was the idea that we could get caught. Honestly, I’ve been thinking about it ever since. I’m downstairs in the lobby, and if you want me to come back up and forget about this, just call me. But if you want to try what I have planned, just text me a confirmation, and open up that other envelope.  _

_ All my love,  _

_ Alex. _

Apprehension rattles through her. She reaches for the other envelope, and tears open the top. She sides out a red silk blindfold and a card that says  _ Go stand by the window wearing only this.  _

The silk is flawless, smooth and rich to touch. Like a talisman, it takes Maggie right back to the conversation in Alex’s bed a few weeks before, just after that first time she had been surprised with handcuffs. They’d just been talking about things they might like to experiment with in the future, both of them in tank tops and boxers, all the time in the world. 

“I like this,” she had announced.

Alex, lying on her stomach with her chin on crossed forearms replied, “What?”

“You discovering yourself.”

“All because of you,” Alex said, eyes glinting with humour and appreciation. 

Watching Alex understanding herself as a lesbian woman hasn’t been without its benefits for Maggie. Certainly, she’s gained a lot out of the nights spent teaching Alex exactly how to use her hands, her mouth, her hips. But seeing what makes Alex tick has been equally indescribable for her. Learning what gets another woman off is often a necessary task in a relationship: that awkward stage in the beginning before intimacy and muscle memory kicks in. 

Yet with Alex is has been a journey, one that she hadn’t walked once with a lover, never mind a dozen times. Each orgasm still blossoms on her face with an undercurrent of wonder, as if she’s surprised that she’s tipping over the edge. And as for adding in the periphery acts- adding the toys, the bondage, the roleplay- has allowed Maggie to go further as well. 

Letting Alex handcuff her to their bed is proof enough of that, and she says as much. 

“You know, I’ve been finding out a lot about myself with you, too.”

“Tell me something you like,” Alex had said. Maggie had raised an eyebrow, and Alex clucked her tongue on the roof of her mouth. “Something  _ else _ you like.”

Honestly, since she was in handcuffs, Maggie had been thinking about one particular curiosity. However, she didn’t know where to begin with it. She definitely didn’t how to word it. When Alex put her in handcuffs, it was clear more or less how the scenario would unfold. She had fantasised about the place, the sounds, the sex itself- even if Alex had dabbled beyond the remits. 

But this curiosity was something she simply didn’t know how to express. 

Even after the night with the vibrator and the report, when Maggie had held the vibrator between her legs while Alex watched, she couldn’t compare. Her thighs had trembled, hands shaking on either side of the pages, but it was seeing the sheer lust in Alex’s eyes as she got herself off watching that sent Maggie spiralling into ecstasy. And that,  _ that _ , is what she wasn’t sure how to describe. 

“I think…” She struggled, and then soldiered on, “I’d like you to talk like we’re gonna get caught.”

Alex’s face pinched. “Babe, we’ve had sex at both of our places of work. We’ve definitely almost got caught.”

They shared a sardonic chuckle, remembering drafty records rooms as their moans echoed through the shelves and off concrete walls. Or the lab late at night, only the hum of the monitors and machines covering breathy gasps. Or the back of a police cruiser on a slow stake out, the stereotypical hand sliding down steamed up glass turning out to be more fact than fiction. 

“No, I mean…” Maggie tried to force the words past the embarrassment clogging up her throat.  “I guess I’d like you to actually talk about it.” 

“Oh.” With a stalling exhale, the penny dropped. “Ooooh.” 

“Yeah.” 

Maggie’s head cycled through exes, none of whom had gotten this close to these desires that she had. She had no basis on which to prepare for Alex’s reaction, no learned response. This was entirely new. 

She initially realised this curiosity with those other girlfriends. A comment here and there had always sent her up in flames. The closest who came to recognising her secret was Emily. She had been so excited about her first major architecture project, that when Maggie surprised her with lunch at work, she had hauled her into one of the side studios and fucked her. Maggie had been uneasy about it, she was often uncomfortable in Emily’s workplace because they made her feel like a lowly cop, and yet here she was with her hand down Maggie’s jeans.

All it had taken was a few comments about Emily’s co-workers potentially catching them and Maggie was melting into her palm. 

But with how that relationship ended, perhaps she had shut off that part of herself, too scared to be vulnerable and open with her desires. And now with Alex, she was becoming a revolution.   

Still, she was self conscious as she pushed: “What do you think?”

Alex propped herself up on her elbows, eyes darting down to Maggie’s lips and back. “I think we could do that some time.” 

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” Alex crawled closer, intent in her movements. “Right now though…”

Maggie stares at the red blindfold. Alex had remembered. Had orchestrated this. And now she was giving Maggie an opportunity to explore what she herself couldn’t have imagined. 

She considers the instructions, consciously counting the steps back to the bed to lift up her phone from the dresser. She has no missed calls or texts from Alex, but as she unlocks her screen, she can see Alex sitting in the hotel’s dining room, staring at her own phone in wait. 

_ Got your message, _ she types, _ Come up.  _

The silk is blood red against her hand, and she only stares at it for a few more seconds before she sends the text and then goes to the window. She shuffles here and there nervously before choosing a spot and looking out on the early morning in Metropolis. Her gaze lingers in the distance, on the  _ Daily Planet  _ globe, before she puts on the blindfold. 

And she waits. 

The seconds elongate. She can hear the rush of blood in her ears like she can hear the morning traffic on the busy road below. Excitement tightens her stomach with every set of footsteps in the corridor outside, and she wiggles her toes. Was she crazy to be standing here like this? In a robe that grazed her mid-thigh, waiting for her lover to ravish her for all to see?

Eventually, the keycard swipes against the door and beeps, unlocking it. Maggie’s heart rate soars. Alex enters the room, and in the pause between the shutting of the door and the shuffle of Alex taking off her boots, she hears the deliberation.  

Alex’s training as an agent and Maggie’s lessons as a cop about never being caught unaware combine into a heady atmosphere. Each of her steady breaths seem deafening, the catch so obvious as arms wind around her waist. 

“This wasn’t part of my instructions,” Alex chastises, pulling at the robe’s tie.

“Maybe I just wanted you to take it off me.” 

Alex tips her chin up and kisses her, guiding their lips together. She can taste the sweet apple juice on Alex’s tongue, and her toes curl in the hotel carpet. One of their idiosyncrasies is how they prefer apple juice to orange, and now she knows every time she drinks it hereafter she will remember this morning, and what they are about to do. 

“You want people to see you like this?” Alex challenges, tugging the robe off and leaving Maggie bare. It falls with a whoosh to their feet. 

“There’s a maid cleaning each of these rooms.” Alex says, taking Maggie’s wrists and ushering them up, pressing her hands flat against the cool window, “I was supposed to put the Do Not Disturb sign on the door, let her know the room is occupied. Guess I forgot.” 

Her touches are lazy and suggestive as they trail down Maggie’s throat to her breasts, her sides and her stomach. Maggie’s hands slowly claw at the window, the impatience already battling against her trust in prolonging the situation.  

“So here’s what’s gonna happen,” Alex purrs, moving Maggie’s hair away from her neck,“You’re gonna come for me before she reaches this room.” She nuzzles under her jaw. “Think you can do that for me, babe?”

“That depends,” Maggie manages.

“On?”

“On how quickly you can make me come.”

The challenge is set. 

“You’re just…” Alex lets out a noise that Maggie recognises. It's the one she makes when she  tries to find the words to describe how she feels but can’t quite get them.

Instead she kisses Maggie again, using the broad sweeps of her hands to buy time.

“You’re amazing,” she says.

“You flatter me,” Maggie says, letting her head fall back against Alex's shoulder as fingertips tease at her nipples.

“I can’t believe you’re mine, sometimes. I guess this is the only way to really show it.” 

Arousal runs own her body like fresh river water smoothing over stones. Alex’s hands are a scientist’s hands, trying and testing each detail. She was cautious in the beginning, experimental when she was more experienced. Maggie by comparison is confident, calloused, a cop. Consciously gentle, but never shy. Alex likes her assertive. 

Right now, however, Alex has magicians hands, sparking lightning from her fingertips where she touches.

They trace lines down further as Alex kisses the shell of her ear and whispers, “I’m the one who gets to make you feel like this, gets to see you like this.” 

“If that maid comes in she’s gonna get an eyeful,” Maggie says, her voice quivering, encouraging the direction that Alex is taking.

“She’ll see you, not a stitch on…” Alex’s hand moves purposely down to cup her centre. “Moaning my name…” 

Heat spirals in her stomach, tingles out between her thighs. She hears more than feels Alex sinking down onto the hotel carpet, and finds she no longer has a voice with how tight her throat is in anticipation.  

“Me on my knees...”

Maggie’s own knees are shaking. A thumb swipes through her arousal and her eyes open wide to the darkness of the blindfold. All that tethers her to the world is the cold window against her palms, Alex’s seductive words, and the buzzing all over her body.  

“You want her to see that? Maybe I should order room service.” Hands clasp around her ankles and travel all the way up shaking legs, a thumb pressing on the inside. “They can come in and watch while I use my mouth on you.”

And as soon as Alex’s mouth is on her, Maggie’s body is buffeted by heat. The temptation to reach around and grasp a handful of auburn hair surges up but she resists, curling her hands against the glass. 

This is what she wanted. This is what she didn’t have the words to describe, the ability to fathom. This is the situation that she wanted, but didn’t know how. 

Even with such an awkward angle, Alex isn’t tentative with her ministrations. She nudges Maggie’s ankles until she gets the message and spreads her legs wide, arching back against Alex’s mouth. The position is fairly salacious, even for them. She one or twice has had Alex’s hand down her pants, but has never had her mouth like this. 

Alex moans her adoration, and if Maggie wasn’t fisting her hands in mounting pleasure, she might have been interested at this. Although, considering the things Alex did the previous afternoon, and with how Maggie has definitely bent her over a table and eaten her out a time or two, there’s no surprise she’s so into it.  

They played that game with each other once or twice, where they would see how long it took for each other to lose concentration and give in to the whims of their lover. For someone who could have been described as obsessed with work, she was often quickly lost to Alex’s scientist hands. With their curious, steady roaming, she rapidly lost focus on her case files. 

Outside, a door opens and shuts down the corridor, and Alex moans again. Her hands curl around her hips and she doesn’t let up one iota. She generally uses broad strokes of her tongue. Maggie guesses this is for two reasons; one, to prove that even from the first time she wasn’t afraid or repulsed. It was vital that Maggie knew she wasn’t hesitating. But secondly, she enjoyed the jolt of surprise that Maggie’s body gave at the change to a faster rhythm. 

Eventually the pressure becomes too much. Maggie pitches forward, leaning her body weight against the window as she comes. If her brain wasn’t lost in a pulsing fog of pleasure, she might have worried about the glass going straight through. With the trembling of her legs she thinks it might be worth it. And with all the talk of someone catching them, her shameless cry of her girlfriend’s name leaves no doubt about what was happening in their hotel room. 

Alex kisses up over Maggie's spine as the waves recede, standing again. She rubs her palms over her ribs, still heaving somewhat as she catches her breath. When she reaches for the blindfold, Maggie grabs her wrist without even thinking about it. She doesn’t want this to be over yet.

“Get it,” she breathes, drawing Alex’s hand away, “The toy. It’s washed. Get it.”

“What, r-really?” Alex splutters.

“Yes.” 

Behind the blindfold, all Maggie can do is listen as Alex leaves her. Over her pounding heartbeat in her ears, she makes out Alex going into the ensuite, rifling around in the suitcase, and shucking off her clothes. 

The click of the bottle, a wet squelch, and then Alex slicking the toy behind her. She inhales sharply at the sudden rush of fresh arousal at the implications, at the anticipation of touch. 

The bottle grazes her ankle as Alex throws it into the pooled fabric of the robe.  

“Sorry,” Alex mutters, her free hand curving around Maggie’s hip, thumb pressing and encouraging her to tilt slightly. “That’s it, babe. Amazing.”

She sinks in inch by inch, drawing a low keening groan out of Maggie before she can stop it. Her hands come to cover Alex’s on her hips. 

“Shit,” she says with a full body shudder. 

Alex exhales slowly and pins one of Maggie’s hands back against the window, her palm flat to the glass. The other tightens its hold on her hip, and Maggie lets her weight rest back, trusting Alex to support her. She has never felt her sense of gravity slamming around as much as she does with Alex holding her up. 

She can fall into Alex’s hands and trust that she will hold steady for both of them. With all of her previous insecurities, she feels like she’s been out in a storm, and now she’s curling up in front of a fire, dry and warm without a care in the world. 

“Let’s not forget, babe, there’s a whole office building across from us,” Alex says, hot and dangerous against the shell of Maggie’s ear, falling right back into the routine, “Anyone could look out and see you like this.” 

“Do you- _ shit _ -” Maggie hisses, reaching back with one hand to blindly tangle in Alex’s hair, “Do you want them to see?”

“See us like this?” Alex pushes her hips forward in demonstration, drawing out a stunted groan, “Maybe I do.”

Usually a little wild, a little erratic, Alex likes to draw out the bolder side. Maggie knows she loves the possession and the power that the act brings. Sometimes Maggie will rile her up purely because she also enjoys the intensity. It’s like she unlocked something in Alex. 

Right now, however, Alex is in a whole other mode. The rolls of her hips are languid, finding a rhythm rather than a conscious thrust each time. One hand slides over Maggie’s clenching stomach as the other tangles their fingers together on the window.  

“Maybe I do want them to see us,” Alex growls, reiterating her point.  

Maggie never enjoyed putting on a show. Being thrown out at 14 did not immediately give her that steely armour she is known for. It shattered her confidence; she didn’t speak in class, didn’t have many friends, didn’t take part in school plays or speak up for what was right. She had to learn to speak up in classes, then in college, then with her girlfriends. Then, she learned how to speak up for her findings in a testosterone-fueled work environment. Otherwise she didn’t chase attention. 

But being displayed like this, like something Alex was proud of and not wanting to hide, set her blood alight. 

She had been in that closet as a kid, had been told to be ashamed for how she felt, how she loved, how she fucked, and part of her is glad she hears footsteps outside in the corridor. Part of her is  _ glad _ that there’s a chance they could be seen by people casually looking over at the hotel. She links her fingertips with Alex’s on her hip, that irrational excitement building. 

Once, she and Alex had made out on the couch to a nature documentary. Faintly, she remembers how the narrator said that some animals hide to mate, and others mate in front of their pack. They proudly show their bond.  

With Alex’s breath hot against her neck, grip tight on her hip and against the back of her palm on the glass, what weak strands of thought remain bring up how excited Alex has always been about their relationship.

When her shyness melted, she was happy to throw an arm around Maggie’s shoulders, hold her hand in public, touch her hip in the supermarket. There is always pride in her voice when she says  _ my girlfriend, Maggie. _

Sometimes she envies how easy Alex had got it, but sometimes it was refreshing to see sexuality and their relationship through her girlfriend’s eyes.

She can tell by the stutter of Alex’s breathing that the tight angle is rubbing the toy just right against her.

“You feel so good,” Maggie gasps. 

The pressure of Alex’s palm against her hand and the undulation of their bones makes the confession slip out. She can feel Alex’s stomach, her hips, her thighs, her ribcage; all working against her and for her. 

Alex grunts, speeding up her pace. “I feel good inside you?”

Even behind the blindfold, Maggie's eyelids flutter. “Yeah.”

The affirmation spurs Alex on, the rocking of her hips telling Maggie that she’s chasing her own pleasure, even while she tries not to. Alex is one of the least selfish lovers she has ever had, and Maggie doesn’t want her to put off her own needs. They are rarely crude with each other, and she knows that a single turnaround will do it for Alex, so she can’t resist. 

“You feel so good fucking me like this.”

Alex’s mouth opens against her shoulder; not biting down, nor kissing, just moaning into her skin as her hips lose their rhythm and she pulls Maggie impossibly tight against her. The telltale shake of her hips and hitch of her breathing lets Maggie know she’s coming, pushing the toy deeper into her. 

While Alex takes a second to recover, Maggie can’t help but feel the tension from her toes to her hairline. Her girlfriend mouths over her neck, grinding forward again. It takes only a few aiding touches of a hand between her thighs and she falls away once again. Her head rolls against Alex’s shoulder, body arching back into her. Her orgasm scatters her thoughts like marbles scooting around her skull. 

As they slump forward against the window, Maggie imagines how they must look. The frost of their breath against the pane, the handprints on the glass. Alex gets her bearings first, pressing a hand flat to Maggie’s belly and pulling her back into the warmth of her body. 

She speaks first too, sheepish and holding back giddiness. “So it turns out I, uh, like it, too.”

“I’m glad,” Maggie drawls, bliss still firing like liquid electricity in her veins at the memory of Alex’s orgasm. 

Alex gently pushes the blindfold up to her forehead, and she blinks at the light. The kisses that they share are more like comedown, recovery smiles. Eventually, Alex pulls away and rests her chin in the crook of her shoulder. They look out at the empty parking lot across the way, slowly filling up with early commuters. 

“Office block?” she asks.

Alex smiles, nuzzling against her cheek. “I had to think on my feet.”

They chuckle. Alex’s lips move up to her temple, where she murmurs her appreciation, “Best birthday present ever.”

It earns her a swat on the flank before she carefully disentangles their bodies, causing a sag in Maggie’s knees. Gathering herself, Maggie takes the blindfold off, steps over the dropped robe and pads over to the trolley. She deposits the silk cover and pokes through the fruit bowl. She picks up the stem of grapes and cradles the bunch, taking it over to the bed and laying down. 

Alex returns from the bathroom, scratching at her shoulder. “You know, I spent my last birthday working. None of the agents even knew until Kara flew in and announced it.” She flops onto the bed beside Maggie, letting herself be fed a few grapes. She chews, and then, “I was showering off some sand from a desert exercise, and when I came onto the main operation floor, everyone cheered.”

“Well, hiding away in a shower stall last year to all of that-” Maggie waves her hand towards the window, “-is a pretty big difference.” 

“Yeah,” Alex agrees, “Wouldn’t change it for the world, though.”

Maggie fingers at the stem of the grapes, prodding along a few. Alex plucks another single grape off and studies it as if it held all of the answers to life’s biggest mysteries.

“These are really juicy,” she declares, popping it into her mouth. 

Maggie feeds her a few more, tasting them herself. They are juicy, but tangy. 

“What time do you wanna go to the museum?” she asks.

Alex cranes her neck to look at the time on her phone, and then huffs back down. “We have time for a nap. We can go this afternoon.” 

Maggie’s lips twitch into a smile. Without explanation, she starts to think about all of those women before Alex and how inadequate the relationships turned out to be. How empty, carved out, used they had made her feel. 

But there’s no darkness to fear anymore. There are no ugly parts of herself that she has to hide from Alex. She feels whole, and honest, and not like she’s walking on a knife edge or waiting for the other shoe to drop. She feels...content.   

“What?” Alex asks, stealing another few grapes from the bunch between them. 

“I’ve…” 

Maggie swallows. She lifts the grapes away from the bed and sets them on the dresser, buying herself time and courage. She lays down, facing Alex, seeing the furrow of concern in her brow.

“I’ve never loved a woman like I love you,” Maggie admits. 

When the statement hits, Alex looks at her as if she put the stars in the sky. She rolls closer, ducking her head underneath Maggie’s chin and murmuring against her breastbone.

“Good,” she says softly, “And before you ask, I’ve definitely never loved a woman like I love you.” 

Maggie grins into Alex’s hairline, pressing a kiss there and closing her eyes. What she had been looking for in every woman, had searched for all of her adult life- that give and take, that balance she needed- is finally right here in her arms. 

She has finally found her equal. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for reading along with this series. It's been an absolute delight to share with you. Let me know what you thought. :)

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry if there are errors, I didnt really get time to edit this week.


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